Genetic and morphological variation and differentiation of Raja clavata populations in the European seas: marker development and preliminary data

In this study the population structure and connectivity of the Mediterranean and Atlantic Raja clavata (L., 1758) were investigated by analyzing the genetic variation of six population samples (N = 144) at seven nuclear microsatellite loci. The genetic dataset was generated by selecting population samples available in the tissue databases of the GenoDREAM laboratory (University of Bologna) and of the Department of Life Sciences and Environment (University of Cagliari), all collected during past scientific surveys (MEDITS, GRUND) from different geographical locations in the Mediterranean basin and North-east Atlantic sea, as North Sea, Sardinian coasts, Tuscany coasts and Cyprus Island. This thesis deals with to estimate the genetic diversity and differentiation among 6 geographical samples, in particular, to assess the presence of any barrier (geographic, hydrogeological or biological) to gene flow evaluating both the genetic diversity (nucleotide diversity, observed and expected heterozygosity, Hardy- Weinberg equilibrium analysis) and population differentiation (Fst estimates, population structure analysis). In addition to molecular analysis, quantitative representation and statistical analysis of morphological individuals shape are performed using geometric morphometrics methods and statistical tests. Geometric coordinates call landmarks are fixed in 158 individuals belonging to two population samples of Raja clavata and in population samples of closely related species, Raja straeleni (cryptic sibling) and Raja asterias, to assess significant morphological differences at multiple taxonomic levels. The results obtained from the analysis of the microsatellite dataset suggested a geographic and genetic separation between populations from Central-Western and Eastern Mediterranean basins. Furthermore, the analysis also showed that there was no separation between geographic samples from North Atlantic Ocean and central-Western Mediterranean, grouping them to a panmictic population. The Landmark-based geometric morphometry method results showed significant differences of body shape able to discriminate taxa at tested levels (from species to populations).

Analysis of fragmentation cross sections of GSI 2021 data for the FOOT experiment

Hadrontherapy is a medical treatment based on the use of charged particles beams accelerated towards deep-seated tumors on clinical patients. The reason why it is increasingly used is the favorable depth dose profile following the Bragg Peak distribution, where the release of dose is almost sharply focused near the end of the beam path. However, nuclear interactions between the beam and the human body constituents occur, generating nuclear fragments which modify the dose profile. To overcome the lack of experimental data on nuclear fragmentation reactions in the energy range of hadrontherapy interest, the FOOT (FragmentatiOn Of Target) experiment has been conceived with the main aim of measuring differential nuclear fragmentation cross sections with an uncertainty lower than 5\%. The same results are of great interest also in the radioprotection field, studying similar processes. Long-term human missions outside the Earth’s orbit are going to be planned in the next years, among which the NASA foreseen travel to Mars, and it is fundamental to protect astronauts health and electronics from radiation exposure .\\ In this thesis, a first analysis of the data taken at the GSI with a beam of $^{16}O$ at 400 $MeV/u$ impinging on a target of graphite ($C$) will be presented, showing the first preliminary results of elemental cross section and angular differential cross section. A Monte Carlo dataset was first studied to test the performance of the tracking reconstruction algorithm and to check the reliability of the full analysis chain, from hit reconstruction to cross section measurement. An high agreement was found between generated and reconstructed fragments, thus validating the adopted procedure. A preliminary experimental cross section was measured and compared with MC results, highlighting a good consistency for all the fragments.